This invention relates to multi-track magnetic heads and a method of fabricating a multi-track magnetic head, and more particularly, the present invention relates to magnetic heads having thin film cores formed by a thin film forming technique.
Multi-track magnetic heads used in various magnetic recording/reproducing apparatus, such as tape recorders, computer storages or the like, are generally divided into two sorts, one being coil-wound magnetic heads, and the other being thin film magnetic heads. In coil-wound magnetic heads, a pair of core halves are made of substantially the same material through substantially the same manufacturing process, and it is necessary to obtain a predetermined track width and a predetermined track pitch with a plurality of core members and a plurality of spacers finished with very high precision. For instance, when manufacturing a ten-track multi-track magnetic head, in order to set the in-line direction size accuracy of a core half to be formed by alternately stacking ten core members and nine spacers, the size accuracy of each of the core members and the spacers is required to be so accurate that it is 19 times the accuracy of the above-mentioned size accuracy. Furthermore, if corresponding core members in a pair of core halves were not similarly formed, position error would occur when the pair of the core halves are assembled to face each other, resulting in error in track width and track pitch. Therefore, it is troublesome to manufacture coil-wound magnetic heads, and there have been drawbacks that productivity is low and it is inevitable that heads of this sort are expensive.
On the other hand, in thin film heads manufactured by thin film forming technique, predetermined accuracy as to track width, track pitch etc. may be readily obtained as long as the accuracy of the mask is satisfactory, and there is an advantage of easy manufacturing and inexpensive products. However, since thin film heads have lamination structure such that a film core is formed on a conductive layer formed on another film core, the two films are too close to each other, resulting in the formation of a short-circuited magnetic path so that it is impossible to obtain sufficient high magnetic field output. Due to this drawback therefore, it has been difficult to use thin film heads as a record head or a record/reproduce head which are required to have high intensity magnetic field output. Although it is theoretically possible to form a plurality of conductive layers in lamination by thin film forming technique so as to obtain high magnetic field output, such manufacturing method results in an increase in manufacturing processes, and therefore suffers from a drawback that the thin film head would be expensive in turn.